


Reflections of You

by matan4il



Category: 9-1-1 (TV)
Genre: (with a slight nod to fanfics), Angst with a Happy Ending, Eddie Diaz Takes Care of Evan "Buck" Buckley, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: s04e05 Buck Begins, Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz First Kiss, First Kiss, Fix-It of Sorts, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Friends to Lovers, Getting Together, Light Angst, Love Confessions, M/M, Pining, Soulmates, for Buck Begins, inspired by promo pics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-31
Updated: 2021-02-16
Packaged: 2021-03-18 03:15:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,898
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29111406
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matan4il/pseuds/matan4il
Summary: Chapter 1, Eddie's POV:"Oh, Eddie would kiss any version of Buck."Based on the pictures Oliver shared of Buck in 'Buck Begins.' Eddie's pining for the guy who's not sure who he is.Chapter 2, Buck's POV:"I'm going to be something. It's just... I don't know what it is yet."That's what Buck had told Maddie. Because there was a cold void in the middle of his heart, left where his parents' repeated breaking of it didn't allow anything in anymore, not even himself. Then his sister left as well and he had to admit to himself that he may never be someone in the same way that other people were, fully formed emotionally and... simply whole. But he could be something, at some point, if he only worked hard enough for it. He could be useful to those who, unlike him, were proper someones. He could have meaning, even if he couldn't have love.Based on the ep Buck Begins, the hurt/comfort scene and confession of love from Buck's POV.
Relationships: Evan "Buck" Buckley/Eddie Diaz (9-1-1 TV)
Comments: 111
Kudos: 385





	1. Eddie

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to my two wonderful beta's, [MasterERose](https://archiveofourown.org/users/MasterERose) and [Toughpaperround](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ToughPaperRound/pseuds/ToughPaperRound), your help was invaluable!
> 
> Notes: The promo pics are found at the end of the fic.

Oh, Eddie would kiss any version of Buck.

That's the conclusion that pops up against the backdrop of the scattered pictures on the bed. There's one where he's a construction worker. His curls are sticking out in all sorts of directions, as rebellious as he is, and Eddie can just smell the hint of sweat. Another picture shows Buck as a ranch hand, sitting casually on the hood of a Jeep with a rope in his hands with the great outdoors spreading wide and wild behind him and the cowboy hat looming over his profile adding just a touch of shade to the inscrutability of his expression. Eddie wants to reach a finger through the frame and touch the corner of his lips, wait until Buck turns to him and finally smiles. The most ridiculous one is probably because it's too different from the man that Eddie knows and loves. It's a picture taken in South America, as all the signs in Spanish indicate, and Buck is incomprehensibly young in it, dressed like some dumb surfer boy while he's serving a few people their drinks. The guy in this photograph exudes an air of superficiality and vacancy, like all he cares about is good times and sex, doesn't matter who with, and nothing else whatsoever. That seems so out of character when Eddie thinks of Buck, who's all heart, but the guy in the picture still _looks_ the same, so yes, odd as it may sound, even him. His stupid Hawaiian-style shirt is open and the cleavage it reveals underneath is tanned, only further emphasized by the contrast of the white pieces of shell in his retro necklace. That skin is tantalizing and Eddie would kiss even this incarnation of Buck, if only he could. 

"Why are you showing me these?" 

It's been a few long minutes of silence since Eddie had begun scanning the disarray of pictures, but now he had to ask, raising his eyes from the covered bed. 

"So you'd know..." Buck hesitates as he casts his reddened eyes down. 

"Know what?" 

"How... lost I was." His voice is small, as is his posture. It's insane how easily his whole physicality can shift. All Eddie wants to do is hug Buck. He can't, though. He has to understand first. 

"Lost?" he folds his arms in front of him, listening. "In what way?" 

"Just take in all of these places and jobs. Completely disconnected from each other. All these different guys that I've been! I had no idea who I was, Eddie. And, you know, I thought that..." Buck's at that point where he can't express the intensity of what he's feeling without gesturing with his hand from his chest outwards. It always echoes in Eddie's mind just how big his heart is. "That I found myself here. I figured out what my calling is. I found my people. A city I love, that I'm happy to serve. I came to the conclusion that I do want a stable relationship after all. And now, this... I think maybe I still don't know who I am." 

Eddie purses his mouth. The urge to hug his best friend is only growing stronger. "You don't look lost to me," he finally says, hoping what he sees in the pictures is what Buck needs to hear. "More like, like you were on a journey to find yourself and on the way, you had a lot of experiences that made you..." he shrugs and searches the room for how to express it accurately, "richer as a person. Made you who you are. What Maddie told you, Buck? It..." he struggles to explain. "It does change things, I get it. Your past isn't what you thought it was. But your present is. You built that yourself. You took every step along the way, because you chose to. What you experienced in each of these places and jobs, what you decided to do with those experiences, those are the things that tell you who you are. That's not changed." 

Buck smiles, but it's bitter. "Thanks, that's..." He nods unconvincingly. Then he sits down heavily on the bed and doesn't finish his thought. 

Eddie takes a seat by his side. "It's okay if it doesn't process right away," he lays a comforting hand on Buck's thigh. "I just hope everything I told you, that my point of view... that eventually it will help." 

"I get what you're saying, I do. But the thing is... I was figuring some of my feelings out and I was going to finally say something about them. But if I got my own story so wrong for such a long time... I don't think I trust my own judgment right now." 

That breaks Eddie. He turns and engulfs Buck in an embrace, to hell with the idea that things need to be worked out first. He may not have a lot of comfort to offer his friend, but he's not going to hold back on what he does have. "I've seen your judgment saving lives countless times. You can doubt a lot of things, but you shouldn't be questioning that." 

Buck is stiff in his arms. One of his hands rises carefully and touches Eddie's arm, but no more than that. "I'm..." It's said quietly into his shoulder. "I'm in love with you, Eds. I've been keeping it to myself, but... yeah. I'm sorry. I probably shouldn't be telling you anything about it when I'm not even sure who I am." 

Eddie swallows. 

This is everything he's wanted to hear, but in the middle of Buck's crisis, it's also frighteningly fragile and elusive. 

And what should he reply to it? There's what's true and there's what's right, but at this moment, he can't tell which either of them is at all. 

Eddie pulls himself out of the hug, but doesn't let go of Buck, instead holding one side of his face and stroking the other with a thumb. 

This. 

This is both. 

Even when he's avoiding Eddie's gaze. Especially then. 

"I don't have all the answers for you, Buck," he replies and their eyes finally meet. "But when it comes to who you are? You're the man I've been in love with for a while. I knew I shouldn't, but I couldn't help myself. Because you're amazing." 

Buck's eyes tear up and Eddie acts slowly, but he's compelled to. He leans in and kisses the corners, where he can just about make out the salty taste. He's not being stopped and well, he's not a big expert, but he thinks that's a good sign. 

"You keep calling me a reckless dumbass." Buck's voice is choked and sort of stunned still. 

"Because you're that, too." Eddie chuckles. "But I guess that's a part of all the things that makes you amazing. Just like these," he turns to examine the photos, his hands slipping down. "All these guys, if I had met them when you were still on your journey? I think I would have fallen in love with any of them. Yeah, maybe the timing wouldn't have been right, maybe it wouldn't have worked out... at least not until we met again later, in the right time and place, but... I would have fallen for any of them. Because they're all you. I don't think there's a version of you or a world in which I wouldn't fall completely in love with you." 

One of the tears in Buck's eyes falls just before he grabs Eddie's face and, eyelids shut intensely, kisses him. 

This world and any other that might exist out there stop. Nothing exists beyond the softness of Buck's lips, the warmth of his hands, the strength of his love. 

How has Eddie missed it before? The Buckleys all seem to be good at keeping secrets, as it turns out. But he's overjoyed that this one being revealed makes things better for once. 

Not that their kiss is the answer to everything. Buck has a struggle ahead of him yet. Some route recalculations that he'll have to do. He won't be alone throughout this crisis, though. Eddie will be right there with him, ready to love him no matter what choices Buck makes, or what turns his journey may take. Whatever form of him emerges on the other side. Eddie is here for it, even more so than a second ago, because he's thrumming with the discovery that he may love every version of Buck, but the best is still the one he actually gets to kiss. 

  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments that you leave are beautiful, and please feel free to also send me feedback, prompts, questions, anything at [my Tumblr](https://matan4il.tumblr.com/)!


	2. Buck

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Buck's POV. A fix it fic for Buck Begins, if you will, or a coda, or however you wanna call it. This episode just left me with a lot of feels and I had to add Buck's POV to Eddie's that I already wrote based on the promo pics.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to the amazing [Lana](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DLanaDHZ/pseuds/DLanaDHZ) for the speedy and awesome beta! xoxox
> 
> Thank you to the sweet [Ro](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ro_Nordmann/pseuds/Ro_Nordmann) for making a cover art for this fic, featured at the start of chapter 2!

  
  


"I'm going to be something. It's just... I don't know what it is yet." 

That's what Buck had told Maddie. Because there was a cold void in the middle of his heart, left where his parents' repeated breaking of it didn't allow anything in anymore, not even himself. Then his sister left as well and he had to admit to himself that he may never be someone in the same way that other people were, fully formed emotionally and... simply whole. But he could be something, at some point, if he only worked hard enough for it. He could be useful to those who, unlike him, were proper someones. He could have meaning, even if he couldn't have love. 

"I learned a while ago, you never go beyond the glass doors." 

He told Abby they were parting outside the airport and not inside before he went on to encourage her and promise her he would be there. He wanted to mean it. The belief that she was not abandoning him and that she would come back. But he'd been here before and his choice to stay outside and say his goodbye not where families and lovers do, it revealed the truth. He'd been here before, getting left behind. Watching the people he loved most, who he didn't think he could live without, moving away and living without him. The repetition of it in itself was enough to make it feel like fate, forever unbreakable, and in that moment, as well as many more to come, Buck accepted it. 

"You're not supposed to just walk in here like you've been here for years." 

Because Buck had walked in shy and unsure of himself, in awe at the warmth that engulfed him and immediately in need of it, of the way it was warming the edges of the void in his heart. He couldn't forgive Eddie the ease with which he fit in right away. Couldn't forgive the fear this instilled in Buck that he was being replaced. 'Here' was his only home and he had to emphasize it as a way of expressing how much he needed it. How unbearable it would be to lose the one place out of all those he had passed through (including the house he grew up in) that has ever become even partially his. And Eddie smiled and tried to appease, then to push back and eventually, on their call together, he gave Buck due credit, recognition of his own earned spot. That was more than he ever expected and to his surprise, he could feel that internal warmth growing. But he couldn't forget the presence of fear and the fact that as much as the team were his family, there were sharp edges to the void, which refused to be softened, not even by love. 

"If it's who you are." 

Buck finished Ali's "I'm just not sure..." break up line. On the living room couch of his new loft, the first house that he was paying for all on his own, the words reverberated with strangeness. It hurt and it was to be expected at the same time. Maybe he guessed from the get go that despite how they met, Ali wasn't the kind of girl who could accept his chosen profession. Or maybe it wasn't her, it could have been him, again. The decree that everyone he gets too close to eventually leaves him was becoming all too familiar, so he can't be mad at her. He hurt, but it wasn't as sharp when it didn't come as a surprise. This was how it was always going to be and he supposed he should be thankful for the good moments they had before it was her turn to go, too. 

"They made one. Me." 

There are pieces of Buck falling all around him, scattered invisible on the floor. The different odd jobs, experimental looks, random hook ups stare back at him from the fallen fragments, reflections of who he is, who he pretended to be, who he might have been in some alternate universe where life didn't keep beating him down. His parents had looked through him and saw nothing. Maddie had lied to him, the one anchor of honest love, far as she might have been at times, that he used to have. The void seems to be all that's left. And then there's fire, the possibility of running into it to replace whatever he can't be. 

"I don't really like myself a lot of times." 

He wants to say that to Eddie, his best friend and the man Buck has come to love in secret, as all men destined to stand outside the glass doors must do. If everyone he allows himself to become close to is bound to leave, perhaps the solution is not to do that. Not to confess his feelings. Swallow them no matter how many times they wish to come out. And their friendship is so good and precious, their joint time together and with Christopher so important... Why not, then? Why should he ruin it and lose forever what they have? 

This is a different kind of confession he's trying to make, one about how he feels regarding himself. For once, he wants to get that off his chest. Let someone in on the existence of the void. On the off chance that might shrink it a little. 

But the words won't come out. Truthful as they are, Buck can't pronounce them, because what if once he does, Eddie comes to see there's a point there and that's the right way to view him? A grown ass man who only managed to gain a little bit of direction far too late in life, a failure in everything he's done and even in the cause for which he was brought into this world. An idiot, who failed at deciphering the mystery of his own life and aimlessness. 

"So you'd know..." 

"Know what?" Eddie asks and his voice is so patient and accepting in advance of whatever is about to come, it's tearing Buck apart to think how badly he's going to be disappointed. 

"How... lost I was." 

Eddie looks at the pictures. He listens, asks a question and then listens some more. When Buck is done explaining, those beautiful, caring brown eyes are no less full of affection and appreciation. No, on the contrary, they seem more open in conveying these sentiments than before. When Eddie speaks, what he says strikes some nerve within the void, in the place where nothing was supposedly left, and Buck's heart aches in all sorts of inexplicable ways as his mind absorbs with thirst the comfort and reassurance that are being offered. 

When Buck admits that he doesn't trust his own judgment, that's not particularly harsh or self-deprecating in his book. He's said and thought much worse of himself. But he can see that it breaks something in Eddie and not even a full second passes before he's hugging Buck. It's weird and right and too wonderful. And the embrace is accompanied by a little speech on why that sense of self-doubt is completely unjustified. 

Buck is shaking. He's still standing outside the glass doors, but to his amazement, someone has come out through them. A proper someone. No, not just any proper someone. Eddie. Who's so amazing that he terrified Buck at first. And now he's standing outside the doors with Buck, in the night, in the cold, and warms him with an embrace. 

"I'm..." He's never felt safer, he's never been more scared. "I'm in love with you, Eds." He adds some explanation, but he doesn't really hear his own voice. He only has ears for Eddie, who's not rejecting Buck, who's confessing to him that this love is mutual, who's telling him that he's amazing himself. 

The void is still there, but it's warmer than ever, its edges seem dull and there's something inside it, like it might have a chance of being filled and closed. If it will, it's bound to take time. It may never be fully so. But Eddie is talking about choosing Buck again and again, in any reality, and he may still be scared, but he's not alone. It dawns on him that he hasn't been for a while now. And even though a lot of people hurt him, it doesn't take a lot of people to heal. Not if they're the right ones, those who will run into fire to save him and would understand when he does that for a complete stranger. As Buck sheds a tear he didn't notice had formed in his eye, he kisses Eddie with the full force of his love and gratitude, for having found the person who, in any variation of existence, was the right one.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kudos and comments that you leave are beautiful, and please feel free to also send me feedback, prompts, questions, anything at [my Tumblr](https://matan4il.tumblr.com/)!


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